Touya's Story: Light
by Reyka Sivao
Summary: I have always lived in darkness. I never thought I cared...until I was granted the chance to escape it. Oneshot.


**Touya's Story: Light**

Characters: Touya, Kurama

Pairings: None

Continuity: English anime

Summary: I have always lived in darkness. I never thought I cared...until I was granted the chance to escape it. Oneshot.

Author's note: Taking a break from Hina's Story to write someone else's. I feel the distinct need to write about people undergoing difficult life transitions, so...here's Touya's.

The second half of this takes place during episode 38, and the dialog is taken from the English episode.

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><p>I have always lived in darkness.<p>

Sometimes it was literal darkness, as I hid in the shadows for hours on end, waiting for the chance to complete my next mission. However, no matter how well-lit my living conditions were, I always existed in a twilight realm of secrets and lies.

Have you ever had to live a lie?

Have you ever had to hide everything you are behind a mask of your own creation? Ever been through a time when there was no one, absolutely no one, to whom you could tell your whole story?

Welcome to my life.

Living with a clan of shinobi isn't a bad way to live, when it's the only way you've ever known. I entered it the same way all of us entered it: stolen from my family before I was even old enough to remember.

I didn't mind.

After all, I was rescued from a life of drudgery to become one of the great shinobi, trained by the greatest ice master of all time, to one day become his heir and successor.

That was what they always told me, that was what I always believed.

And the only cost I had to pay for this power was always living in the darkness, always being careful never to reveal myself, always remaining detached from the things that the rest of the world lived for.

I could never show both sides of my face at once.

Our clients saw only masks and hoods, never even seeing what we looked like when they hired us to take care of their dirty business.

When we ventured into the outside world, we left the masks behind, but we also abandoned our shinobi selves, wrapping ourselves instead in the identities of ordinary demons.

My ninja family, of course, knew both my face and my identity, but that meant little. There was still so much that I could never speak of, even too them. Even to the people I was closet to, there were still things I could never voice.

I said earlier that it's not a bad life, if you've never known anything else.

That's not quite true.

It would, perhaps, be more accurate to say that it's not a bad life, if you've never _imagined_ anything else.

That was what I couldn't tell them.

As a child, I was content to strive for the goals of the clan, working dedicatedly toward the goals they had set for me. But as I grew older, and especially after my master died and I inherited his title and place in the clan, I began to wonder.

_Why do we live like this? _

_What would it be like, to live life openly and honestly, to come out as myself? What if I could show myself to the world, without being afraid of what would happen? How could this ever happen?_

_Who am I?_

_Do even I know the self I want the whole world to see?_

At first, I dismissed such notions as silly fancies, trivial thoughts that I should pay no heed to. I focused all the more on making myself stronger, all for the good of the clan. I expected such thoughts to simply fade away as they were replaced with more meaningful concerns.

But they didn't.

The questions remained, the undercurrent of thoughts always with me, pulling at me like a rip tide every time I tried to think.

Slowly, the desire grew in me to speak of these matters with another—just to quell these rebellious thoughts, I told myself.

But to whom could I turn?

Perhaps the leader, and presumably the wisest member of the clan? But no, I didn't like…I didn't like talking to Risho. Not that I doubted his leadership, but he didn't have the finely tuned sense of honor that I had learned from my teacher. He was certainly not someone to whom I could bring doubts—no, not doubts, never doubts! Merely idle ponderings. There was really no need to bother anyone with them at all.

Was it a matter of honor that bothered me? Had I somehow gotten in my head that hiding in the shadows was dishonorable? Why would I have? This is what we do.

The most honorable member of our clan was Gama, bar none. And his strict code was based mostly on loyalty to the clan. Perhaps he could set my doubts to rest, without the risk of my being tempted to set anything above the clan—not that I ever would.

But no. He might well think that even _thinking_ such things was disloyal. And besides, hadn't I already decided that I didn't need to ask anyone?

Or perhaps Jin? He was, of all the members of that clan, that one I considered closest to being a friend. He was also the one of us that was the least suited to living in the darkness…surely that was merely a coincidence. Surely I wasn't simply drawn to his exuberant sense of _life_, always seeming to strain for something more, something beyond the narrow bounds of permissible behavior in our clan.

No, that couldn't be it. I was the Ice Master—my heart was as cold as the highest mountains of Demon World.

And…when had the rules of our clan become so narrow? I didn't remember them changing, but I also didn't remember them constricting me until I couldn't breathe.

So I went on, struggling with myself, never finding a balance, but also never reaching a breaking point.

Not until the tournament.

I don't know how the decision was made—if Risho took council from anyone, it wasn't from me.

And yet, I somehow found myself facing the greatest possibility of my life.

The sense of freedom was staggering.

Suddenly, all my doubts and misgivings about our way of life took on an incredible solidity. I could finally allow myself to see them, because I could finally allow myself to think about an alternative.

I could _think_, without being afraid of what my thoughts might mean_._

The sense of self that I so desperately wanted to show the world took shape within my mind, and I finally knew what I wanted.

I wanted light.

That was the only way I could put it, even to myself, that didn't involve long explanations of things that I wasn't sure I _could_ explain.

I wanted an end to the endless darkness. I wanted openness and honesty. I wanted to stop hiding.

I wanted to take off my mask and let the sun touch my face.

I wanted light.

That thought wrapped itself around my mind, becoming my mantra as I finally allowed myself to hope.

_Light. Let me have light. Please, please let me have light._

I would have to fight for it, I knew that. I didn't care. I would fight as I had never fought before, if only it meant I could have what I so desperately desired.

I was prepared to fight to the death when I jumped into the ring. I knew I might be called on to give my life in pursuit of this goal, as Gama had.

I didn't care.

Death was better than having this spark of hope snatched away from me.

I was prepared to fight. I was prepared to die.

But I wasn't prepared for what did happen when I entered the ring.

"Please, answer me one thing first. Why?"

I stared. All these years, all these endless years of unadmitted agony, and it's a complete _stranger_ who finally sees through me?

And he did see. I could tell.

"Why expose yourselves now?"

Somehow, this stranger had not only been able to read me perfectly, but also…he _understood_. I don't know what his life had thrown at him that he could understand, but he did.

My first instinct was to do what I always did when confronted with a direct question: lie, avoid answering, do anything possible to stay away from the searing brightness of the direct truth.

And that's what stopped me. The truth was _bright_. It was open and honest and everything about the light I'd been so desperately seeking.

So I did something I'd never done before: I told the truth.

"For light."

Those were the hardest words I had ever spoken. My voice nearly cracked with the effort.

I told him what I sought and how I hoped I would attain it. I told him what I had never been able to tell anyone else, because he was a stranger and I was about to kill him anyway. And all the while I told _myself_ that I was only doing it to give him the time he sought, because it was dishonorable to fight an opponent with _both_ his handicaps.

Once he was free of the first, I fought him. I let my favorite mask, my mask of arrogance, slide over my face again. I let it cover my unplanned openness, tried to forget that I'd said anything.

"We're more alike than you know."

My façade cracked again.

He asked me what I wanted to do with the prize I sought…and I found I couldn't answer. I hadn't thought beyond my desperate need for the light, so his question caught me off guard. What _did_ I want to do with it when I had it?

"The world will know…just as soon…as we get there."

That was the best I could come up with, stumbling over myself in an effort to answer.

He was delaying again! I needed to focus. When was the last time I had been so out of focus during a fight? Fighting was my _life_.

I had to end this, and _now_. I abandoned my shards, opting for a more direct approach. I thought I could beat him like that, letting my sword finish him off in one final, unavoidable blow.

I didn't count on him being even more desperate than I was.

Who in their right mind would deliberately inflict that kind of harm on themself?

Would I have, if it had come to that?

Either way, I didn't see it coming. I sank to the ground, hope seeping out of me with my blood.

I had met my match.

The one time it really mattered, more than anything else in my life ever had, I had failed.

"Please, kill me," I begged.

I couldn't go on. I had lost the one hope I had ever had in my life, and it was far, far too late to go back to living in the careful, deliberate balance of denial I had kept up for so long. If I couldn't live in the light, I couldn't live at all.

"I will not."

What? Why not? Was he just that much of a sadist? He _knew_.

He did know, better than I did.

I thought I had placed all my hope in the light. I had thought…had simply assumed…that the only way I could live in the light was to win the tournament and gain the prize, simply because that was the way this hope had first presented itself to me.

When he refused to kill me, he offered me a chance…a chance, and a warning.

He warned me that the light could be a harsh mistress, shining on the past and showing forth one's deepest regrets in sharp relief.

But by allowing me to live, he still offered me the chance to accept it.

"I only wanted to know if you could make your life better…nobler...than mine has been."

And with that, I finally saw the truth, as white-hot and brilliant as I had ever imagined it.

I no longer had to seek the light.

The light had already found me.


End file.
